Over the last number of years, in this country and other countries in Europe, we heard great talk about a cashless society, where everyone was moving to cards and going away from chequebooks. I know the Taoiseach is an admirer of European policy and he has bought into this idea of a cashless society.

Fine Gael often talks about SMEs. They are the backbone of business across the country. At the moment, the banks have a new Houdini act which they are doing around Ireland with farmers and people who always had chequebooks, telling them of this great idea of a business debit card. When businesses heard of a debit card, it was always in terms of a transaction cost of approximately 17 cent to the business, and they bought into that. Sadly, I have been contacted by many businesses around the country in the past few weeks because the banks have been pushing those new business cards onto farmers and businesses and they have been accepted by merchants and marts around the country. A person can spend €10,000 in a mart on five or six animals, pay for meal at a merchant's or be in the process of building a house with costs of €40,000, €50,000 or €60,000 at the local hardware business. Those cards have been put forward but it is to the detriment of small businesses, who have found a huge charge is being put upon them. One person telephoned me last week to tell me that in the last month, they have lost €2,800 by accepting these cards.

Bank robbers.

This is a scandalous situation that small businesses have to contend with in this country.

A question, please.

The reality is that if a person is building a house with €50,000 or €60,000 worth of materials, the person that supplied them, that is, the merchant or the hardware business, would pay back to the bank approximately €1,000 of the money they took in because they accepted this card.

It is outrageous.

This is a scandalous situation. As bad as the chequebook situation was, where a person might write five, six or eight cheques and they cost approximately 70 cent each to the person that was writing them, what is happening now-----

Will you put your question, please?

People are being lured in by this new great card they are being given. The people who have accepted them are being robbed by the banks, with what is going on.

Sorry, will you put your question? You are way over time.

I ask the Taoiseach to join with me and make it very clear to businesses, while this con job is going on around the country, in the banks that we have bailed out-----

Thank you, Deputy.

-----that people are told to continue using their chequebook-----

Sorry, Deputy. I will have to cut you off.

The situation at the moment, in most places, be it in marts or in business-----

Deputy, will you please obey the Chair?

-----is that they are not accepting those cards.

Deputy, you are a minute and a half over your time. Would you please sit down? Thank you.

Will the Taoiseach join with me and put out this warning to the Irish people?

Before the Taoiseach responds, I ask the Deputy to respect the Chair when his time is up.

Everyone else talks as long.

Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil got longer to speak.

I deal with those issues. You mind your own business. I call the Taoiseach.

Deputy Fitzmaurice raises a valid point. I suggest that some of those small businesses and individuals who feel they are being overcharged by banks should raise the matter with the Credit Review Office, which is an independent authority as ombudsman. I get the impression the Deputy is talking about somebody building a house in rural Ireland who does so through subcontractors or by piece work, although one would write more than six cheques to do that, according to people who work in that business.

The Government has a very clear policy about the promotion of SMEs, access to credit for SMEs and the setting up of the local enterprise offices in order that SMEs can do business, set up a business, hire people and make it easier for business to be conducted. The banks have their individual policies and, in respect of mortgages and other issues, people are advised to check the possibility of switching from one bank to another for the offers and benefits they may get. I suppose debit cards are an invitation to continue debiting and, clearly, there are charges and a cost for that.

I suggest this is an issue that should receive some focus from the Credit Review Office and from the Central Bank, which regulates the banking system. If the Deputy wants to give me details of the person he mentioned, I would be happy to follow it up for him.

This is a problem that has arisen over the last two months, where banks have said to their customers, "We are moving from cheque books and we are going to give you this card". Businesses accepted those cards in good faith, believing there would be the normal charge. There is a duty on politicians to explain to businesses what is going on. We do not want to see businesses losing money because some of them are on their knees. I am not talking only about building a house. I am talking about a person going into a mart and paying €10,000, €12,000 or €15,000 for cattle, or about someone paying their local merchant every month for meal.

This is the problem that has arisen. If a person uses the card, it is charged at 1.5% of the total transaction. If it is done over the telephone, they are charging up to 2%. This is coming from banks that we, as the taxpayers, own 99% of. I think there is a duty on us to encourage people to continue to use their chequebooks until this mess is sorted out. There is only one way the banks will learn or get the message. If people do not use the item they are given, and if they stay on the same path they were on, then sooner or later the banks will get the message. This has to come from us, as politicians.

That is why the Government is interested in the future of post offices and credit unions-----

It is closing them down.

Tell that to Joan.

-----and the opportunity that exists for people to check the different range of opportunities that banks offer here. Whether we like it or not, we are moving towards a situation where electronic payments become more and more prevalent, and we see them everywhere now.

Big Brother.

Why is that good?

Whether people do business from their mobile telephone or on a credit card, it is all moving in that direction. How many people can the Deputy find in a bank any more? The machines talk back at us and so on.

We cannot trust the banks.

The Deputy makes a valid point about businesses losing money. Businesses and their accountants should be acutely aware of the range of systems and options that are open to them. It is an important point. Whether we like it or not, in five or ten years time, we will have moved ultimately to electronic payments.

The Barclays scam of several billion was an electronic one. All the big scams are electronic.

Every retailer and business should be online and every individual now buys much of their ordinary consumer goods online.

Pie in the sky.

The chequebook is going, one way or the other.

He means it is okay for the banks to rip off businesses.

The Deputy is raising the alternative and the consequence, and I take his point.